The impact of weather forecast information on power generation can be substantial. For example, many different types of weather conditions may cause power outages ranging from sporadic to widespread. In the utility industry severe weather is a weather event that directly causes widespread outages to a utility's distribution system, or in a worst case, causes extensive damage to a utility's transmission and distribution system. Storm events may leave hundreds of thousands of customers without power and the cost of restoration could be in the millions of dollars.
Utilities utilize severe weather forecasts to plan and mobilize resources to meet the anticipated challenges of storm restoration. Power companies will try to stage materials and restoration crews in areas that will likely experience outages and damage. This results in a concentration of available crews and materials that are ready to begin restoration work immediately after the passage of a storm through a region. This also reduces the total storm outage time for customers in the affected regions. However, because of the changing nature of storms and weather forecasting, utilities do not always stage equipment and personnel in the appropriate locations.
Improvements in severe weather forecasts of major events such as hurricanes, winter storms, and severe thunderstorms can aid utility managers in resource scheduling and materials management. Further, utilities that focus on excellence in customer service will retain customers as the electric utility industry moves into a more competitive market.
Thus, there is a need for improvements in weather forecasting from temperature forecasts to severe weather events that will aid in a utility's ability to recover from storm events. This will advantageously reduce costs and outage time, while increasing a utility's efficiency such that cost savings can be passed on to customers and systems can be improved. The present invention provides for such a system.